The Army has more than a million pieces of gear in the old, digital camo pattern. They might try dyeing it.

An Army Ranger student lifts a rucksack onto her back in 2015 at Camp James E. Rudder on Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The Army is exploring whether to overdye old camouflage rucksacks to match the colors in its new pattern. (Nick Tomecek/Northwest Florida Daily News via Associated Press)

As soon as the Army had begun the search for a new camouflage pattern, circa 2013, the service also started thinking about what to do with huge stocks of equipment covered in gray-green pixelation.

A dye job might be the answer, according to the House Armed Services Committee’s most recent National Defense Authorization Act edit, and the Army is set to wrap up a study of how to do it later this year.

The Army Combat Uniform in Operational Camouflage Pattern, which debuted in 2015. (Army)

“This evaluation could validate processes that could alter UCP printed products into a color palette that blends with the new camouflage prints, allowing the Army to conserve resources by overdying [sic] UCP materials for use with OCP patterned equipment,” per the draft released April 25.

This wouldn’t include uniforms, according to a PEO Soldier spokeswoman, but rather about a million pieces of gear covered in nylon textured fabric, like assault packs and rucksacks.

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“We looked at all the colors in the OCP pattern and the Dark Brown tested the best in terms of blending and color match,” Dawson said.

Historically, the Army has found other ways to unload gear after a camo pattern switch, so this would be a first.

In the past, Dawson said, old gear has been unloaded through foreign military sales or the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, a clearinghouse for everything from gear to computers to vehicles, which are screened and evaluated, then donated, sold to police and firefighters or given to other federal agencies.